NOIRELAND to return in Spring 2019

Belfast’s NOIRELAND International Crime Festival is delighted to announce a spring 2019 return, with another weekend of stellar names from the world of crime fiction.

NOIRELAND launched in October 2017 with a brilliant line-up featuring the best in local talent, international crime-writing stars, and some of the greatest names from TV crime drama. Highlights included the Line of Duty event with its BAFTA-winning creator Jed Mercurio and star Adrian Dunbar, author panels with Robert Crais, Benjamin Black, Adrian McKinty, Arne Dahl and Liz Nugent, and a closing event with internationally renowned actor Aidan Gillen, discussing the role crime fiction has played in his life and career.

NOIRELAND will be moving from the autumn to become a spring festival, and will take place once again at Belfast’s iconic Europa Hotel. Plans are already afoot and it is shaping up to be another superb weekend of crime fiction, with interviews and discussions featuring some of the greatest names from page and screen.

NOIRELAND takes place 8-10 March 2019. The festival programme will be announced and the ticket office will open on 16 November 2018.

NOIRISH NIGHTS IN NOVEMBER

Following the success of NOIRELAND, the audience has been crying out for more events. So we are delighted to announce that NOIRELAND will be hosting two very special events this autumn:

FUN LOVIN’ CRIME WRITERS Friday 2 November

A unique evening of music and books, with crime fiction’s supergroup, the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. Featuring authors Mark Billingham, Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Stuart Neville, Luca Veste and Doug Johnstone.

IAN RANKIN in Conversation with Brian McGilloway Friday 16 November

International bestseller Ian Rankin will be talking about his latest novel In A House of Lies and the recent 30th anniversary of his iconic detective John Rebus.

http://www.noireland.com

For more information on NOIRELAND or NOIRISH NIGHTS contact Angela McMahon angela@flow-comms.co.uk | 07753 384711

NoirWich Crime Writing Festival celebrates 5th year with block buster line - up

A star cast of crime writers has been confirmed for Noirwich as the festival returns to celebrate its fifth year from 13- 16 September 2018. The event brings together crime-writing giants Val McDermid, Nicci French, Paula Hawkins and Elizabeth Hayes, alongside panels celebrating killer debuts and cutting edge writing from across the genre.

Organised by the National Centre for Writing and the University of East Anglia (UEA), the events form part of a city-wide celebration of activities in Norwich, England’s first UNESCO City of literature. The long weekend is also set to include writing workshops, crime themed cocktails and a murder mystery musical from new Poirot novelist Sophie Hannah.

Kick starting Noirwich 2018 are married couple Nicci French, who will celebrate their 21-year crime writing career discussing Day of the Dead, the much anticipated finale to their Freida Klein series. Queen of Crime Val McDermid will deliver a talk on violence and gender within the genre for this year’s Noirwich Lecture sponsored by The Times and The Sunday Times Crime Club; acclaimed literary novelist John Banville will discuss his double life as crime fiction writer Benjamin Black; and global sensations Paula Hawkins and Ruth Ware will be in conversation about their chart topping thrillers.

Not-to-be missed events also include an insightful session with experts from UEA who will explain the facts behind fingerprints, forensics and postmortem evidence; a spellbinding hour on witchcraft and superstition with authors Syd Moore, Cathi Unsworth and Roz Watkins; an in-conversation with novelist and screenwriter Robert Thorogood about his BBC One hit Death in Paradise; and a panel on books to screen with Sarah Pinborough, Jane Lythell and Matt Wesolowski.

Avid crime readers can enjoy the best new and cutting edge work the genre has offer, as the festival showcases upcoming, debut and boundary-pushing authors. UEA’s MA Crime Fiction graduates will launch their anthology Postmortem at local pub The Murderers; Amer Anwar, Claire Askew and Stuart Turton will discuss their distinguished debuts; and Leo Benedictus, Jacob Ross and Louise Welsh will talk about their recent work and creating something new in the genre. The festival will conclude with a fun hour of readings to celebrate its fifth birthday headlined by New York Times bestseller Elizabeth Hayes.

Chris Gribble, Festival Co-Director and Chief Executive of the National Centre for Writing, said: “Crime fiction is phenomenally popular and has become the UK’s top selling fictional genre this year- beating all others put together. Noirwich is a wonderful celebration that brings people from far and wide to our UNESCO City of Literature for a four-day spectacular of the most exciting and diverse crime writing that the world has to offer.”

Henry Sutton, Festival Co-Director and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the UEA added: “Noirwich is at the cutting edge of the most exciting, dynamic and popular literary and filmic genre in the world. But it’s so much more as well; it’s a place for great, timely and entertaining discussions in the friendliest of environments. Meet the people who shape imaginations and who can make you laugh. Crime writers know how to have fun.”

The Noirwich Crime Writing Festival draws on its setting as a site of significant cultural heritage to offer a unique city-wide experience, with events and fringe activities complementing Norwich’s existing local attractions. Between panels, visitors can discover local food with a crime twist, follow the city’s crime and punishment walking tour, stay at Agatha Christie’s favourite hotel, browse one of Margaret Atwood’s favourite bookshops (The Book Hive) or take a trip to the dungeons at the medieval Norwich castle.

Noireland!

FESTIVAL PROGRAMME 

Europa Hotel, Belfast

FRIDAY 27 OCTOBER

9:30-11:00 Crime writing workshop 1

Crime screenwriting workshop 2

11:30:1:00 Crime writing workshop 1 Crime screenwriting workshop 2

2:00-3:30 Crime writing workshop 1 Crime screenwriting workshop 2

4:00-5:30 Crime writing workshop 1 Crime screenwriting workshop 2

6.30pm-7:15pm OPENING NIGHT PARTY

Join us for a celebration of crime fiction. You will be in the company of some of the legends of crime writing, along with hottest new talent around.

7:30pm-8:30pm LINE OF DUTY

In the spotlight The BBC’s award-winning crime drama Line of Duty has been voted one of the best cop shows of all time. Its creator Jed Mercurio, Adrian Dunbar who plays Superintendent Ted Hastings and the show’s producer Stephen Wright talk about working on one of the greatest crime series on the small screen.

9-10pm BENJAMIN BLACK in conversation with David Torrans John Banville, one of Ireland’s greatest novelists talks about his other life as crime novelist Benjamin Black. From his misanthropic pathologist Quirke, who first appeared in Christine Falls, to his latest historical crime novel Prague Nights, fans will get an insight into what it takes to juggle two separate identities and genres.

SATURDAY 28 OCTOBER

10am-11am A SAFE FEAR

What makes you really scared? Caz Frear, Jo Spain, Ali Land and Steve Mosby discuss why we use crime fiction to explore our deepest fears.

11.30am-12.30pm IDENTITIES

Adrian McKinty, Abir Mukherjee, Stella Duffy and Louise Welsh reflect on questions around identity and how crime fiction explores sexuality, gender, race, culture and religion.

2pm-3pm BORDERLANDS

Borders have shaped the people who live near them for centuries – the culture, politics and the crime that arise because of them. Brian McGilloway, David Young, Arne Dahl and Claire McGowan discuss with Craig Robertson how borders across Britain, Ireland and Europe have inspired their crime writing. They also take a look into the future at what opportunities Brexit might pose for a crime writer.

3.30pm-4:30pm THE DARK SIDE OF COUNTRY LIFE

Beneath the chocolate-box façade, for many crime writers the countryside is a deadly place. From murder mysteries to claustrophobic thrillers, rural life can be a dark and threatening existence. Graeme Macrae Burnet, Anthony J. Quinn, Andrea Carter and Ruth Ware discuss their latest dark tales from the countryside.

5pm-6pm AMERICANA

Stuart Neville (who also writes as Haylen Beck), Helen Callaghan, Ray Celestin discuss why the USA attracts so many crime writers as a setting for their novels – whether they’re American or not. Is America just the perfect location for a crime and, if so, why?

8pm-9pm ROBERT CRAIS in conversation

International bestseller Robert Crais is one of crime fiction’s most influential writers. His career started in television where he was one of Hollywood’s hottest screenwriters, working on legendary shows including Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey and Miami Vice. He then became a full-time novelist, creating one of crime fiction’s most loved partnerships Elvis Cole & Joe Pike.

10pm-late HALLOWEEN PARTY

A criminally good Halloween party! Live music and an award for the best crime-themed costume.

SUNDAY 29 OCTOBER

10.30am-11.30am

TELLING A CRIME STORY 

Steve Cavanagh, Craig Robertson and Eoin McNamee talk to Diana Bretherick about our fascination with real crime and why some people find criminals so fascinating. They discuss the constraints and morality of constructing a narrative around a real crime, either through fiction, or through journalism.

12pm-1pm VIKING v CELT

It’s been over a millennium since the first Viking invasion of Ireland and crime fiction fans are enjoying the current invasion a lot more! But are the Celts and the Vikings so very different? We explore the similarities between Scandinavian and Irish crime fiction with two of the greatest proponents from each side: bestselling novelists Arne Dahl and Liz Nugent.

2:30pm-3:30pm CHRISTIE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The whodunit has been hugely popular for well over a century. Three contemporary crime novelists Ruth Ware, Martin Edwards and Andrew Wilson, discuss how the murder mystery is being re-invented for modern audiences.

4pm-5pm SOPHIE HANNAH

The multi-talented, bestselling novelist Sophie Hannah talks to journalist Jake Kerridge about her writing career. From her gripping psychological thrillers to the internationally bestselling Hercule Poirot follow on novels, Sophie is one of Britain’s best-loved crime novelists.

Books to Look Forward to from Penguin and Michael Joseph

January 2017

Good Me Bad Me is by Ali Land.  NEW NAME. NEW FAMILY. SHINY. NEW. ME. Annie's mother is a serial killer. The only way she can make it stop is to hand her in to the police. But out of sight is not out of mind. As her mother's trial looms, the secrets of her past won't let Annie sleep, even with a new foster family and name - Milly. A fresh start. Now, surely, she can be whoever she wants to be. But Milly's mother is a serial killer. And blood is thicker than water. Good me, bad me. She is, after all, her mother's daughter...

He was once called Orphan X. As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from a children's home, raised and trained as part of a secret government initiative buried so deep that virtually no one knows it exists. But he broke with the programme, choosing instead to vanish off grid and use his formidable skill set to help those unable to protect themselves. One day, though, Evan's luck ran out ...Ambushed, drugged, and spirited away, Evan wakes up in a locked room with no idea where he is or who has captured him. As he tries to piece together what's happened, testing his gilded prison and its highly trained guards for weaknesses, he receives a desperate call for help. With time running out, he will need to out-think, out-manoeuvre, and out-fight an opponent the likes of whom he's never encountered to have any chance of escape. He's got to save himself to protect those whose lives depend on him. Or die trying ...  The Nowhere Man is by Gregg Hurtwiz.

A body is found, victim's head wrapped in cling film, hands tied behind her back. The small island's police force needs help from Amsterdam's Murder Squad - and veteran detective Inspector Jaap Rykel. His investigation swiftly identifies a suspect, who easily hands himself over. But the killer has no history of violence, no motive, and no connection to the victim. On the other side of the country, a similar murder - and confession - is reported and Rykel wonders if these are random senseless acts, or something far darker...? Rykel must walk a thin line between spotting patterns no one wants to see, and a sinister, sprawling case which threatens to consume everything in its path.  Before the Dawn is by Jake Woodhouse.

February 2017

Setagaya ward, Tokyo Inspector Kosuke Iwata, newly transferred to Tokyo's homicide department, is assigned a new partner and a secondhand case. Blunt, hard as nails and shunned by her colleagues, Assistant Inspector Noriko Sakai is a partner Iwata decides it would be unwise to cross. A case that's complicated - a family of four murdered in their own home by a killer who then ate ice cream, surfed the web and painted a hideous black sun on the bedroom ceiling before he left in broad daylight. A case that so haunted the original investigator that he threw himself off the city's famous Rainbow Bridge. Carrying his own secret torment, Iwata is no stranger to pain. He senses the trauma behind the killer's brutal actions. Yet his progress is thwarted in the unlikeliest of places. Fearing corruption among his fellow officers, tracking a killer he's sure is only just beginning and trying to put his own shattered life back together, Iwata knows time is running out before he's taken off the case or there are more killings ...  Blue Light Yokohama is by Nicolás Obregón.

 

Written in Bones is by James Oswald.  The roots of murder run deep...When a body is found in a tree in The Meadows, Edinburgh's scenic parkland, the forensics suggest the corpse has fallen from a great height. Detective Inspector Tony McLean wonders whether it was an accident, or a murder designed to send a chilling message? The dead man had led quite a life: a disgraced ex-cop turned criminal kingpin who reinvented himself as a celebrated philanthropist. As McLean traces the victim's journey, it takes him back to Edinburgh's past, and through its underworld - crossing paths with some of its most dangerous and most vulnerable people. And waiting at the end of it all, is the truth behind a crime that cuts to the very heart of the city...

She came to find her friend. Instead she found a killer. Serial killer expert Darby McCormick gets a call from FBI Agent Jackson Cooper, who has been contacted by a woman who's been in hiding for twenty years. She was one of the only survivors of a murderer who has been carving a dark path across America for decades. Cooper believes he may have tracked this psychopath to the wilds of Montana. Now, he needs Darby's help to bring him in. But when she arrives Cooper has vanished without a trace. Something is very wrong - and as the trail goes cold, Darby is all alone in a strange town, stalked by an unseen predator who wants to add another victim to his collection.  Every Pretty Thing is by Chris Mooney.

Zodiac is by Sam Wilson.  In San Celeste, a series of uniquely brutal murders targets victims from totally different walks of life. In a society divided according to Zodiac signs, those differences are cast at birth and binding for life.All eyes are on detective Jerome Burton and astrological profiler Lindi Childs divided in their beliefs over whether the answer is written in the stars, but united in their conviction that there is an ingenious serial killer executing a grand plan Together, they will unravel a dark tale of betrayal, lost love, broken promises and a devastating truth with the power to tear their world apart . . "

ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO GO BACK?  Kate Rafter is a successful war reporter. She's the strong one. The one who escaped Herne Bay and the memories it holds. Her sister Sally didn't. Instead, she drinks.  But when their mother dies, Kate is forced to return to the old family home. And on her first night she is woken by a terrifying scream.  What secret has Kate stumbled upon?  And is she strong enough to uncover the truth . . . and make it out alive?  My Sister’s Bones is by Nuala Ellwood

March 2017

Follow My Leader is by M J Arlidge.  A desperate young woman runs through the storm. She hares up the path, hammering desperately on the front door, crying for help. The startled owner opens the door, ushers her inside, promising her whatever assistance she needs. This fateful decision will be his last. He should never have opened the door ...A middle aged couple are found brutally murdered in their ransacked suburban house. Helen Grace, now back at Southampton Central following her release from prison, is first on the scene. The crime is baffling, hideous, cruel, but before Helen can process the evidence, another double murder is reported - identical in almost every way to the first. What follows is the darkest, most dangerous night of Helen's life as a sequence of brutal home invasions takes place. By sunrise eight people will be dead and Helen may well be the ninth as she finds herself locked on a collision course with a pair of rampaging spree killers. Is there method in their madness? Or are they selecting their victims at random? It falls to Helen to wrestle with these questions - only by answering them can she end the bloodshed.

The year is 1911. Chief Investigator Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency has had many extraordinary cases before. But none quite like this. Hired to find a young woman named Anna Pape who ran away from home to become an actress, Bell gets a shock when her murdered body turns up instead. Vowing to bring the killer to justice, he begins a manhunt which leads him into increasingly more alarming territory. Anna Pape was not alone in her fate - petite young blonde women like Anna are being murdered in cities across America. And the pattern goes beyond the physical resemblance of the victims - there are disturbing familiarities about the killings themselves that send a chill through even a man as experienced with evil as Bell. If he is right about his fears, then he is on the trail of one of the greatest monsters of his time.  The Cutthroat is by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott.

It all started with the email.  It came through to her boyfriend's iPad in the middle of the night. Rachel didn't even mean to look. She loves Jack, and she's pregnant with their child. She trusts him. But now she's seen it, she can't undo that moment, or the chain of events it has set in motion.  Why has Jack been lying about his past? Just what exactly is he hiding? And doesn't Rachel have a right to know the truth at any cost?  Everything But the Truth is by Gillian McAllister.

April 2017

Frey & McGray are back for their biggest and best case yet...1890. The Scottish Play is coming home. But before the darling couple of London theatre, Henry Irving & Ellen Terry, take their acclaimed Macbeth north of the border, terror treads the boards on closing night in the capital. A supposed banshee leaves a message written in blood, foretelling someone's demise. But whose? With the company's arrival in Scotland, comes another death threat and Edinburgh's own beloved pair - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray & Inspector Ian Frey - enter the scene. Frey scoffs, believing it to be a publicity stunt, while McGray is convinced it's a supernatural affair. As they scrutinise the key players, they discover that Terry, Irving, and his peculiar, preoccupied assistant (one Bram Stoker) all have reasons to kill, or be killed...By occult curse or human hand, death will take a bow the night the curtain rises. A Mask of Shadows is by Oscar de Muriel

A hit-and-run on a woodland road near Amsterdam involving an Afghan boy is connected to a powerful international crime syndicate. Journalist Farah Hafez, together with her colleague Paul Chapelle, gets caught up in an investigation that takes them all the way to Moscow and has greater political and personal ramifications than they bargained for. After this perilous journey, their lives will never be the same again.  Butterfly on the Storm is the first book in the Heartland trilogy by Walter Lucius.

When disgraced spy Solomon Vine’s friend n rival Gabriel Wilde vanishes without a trace, it’s only Wilde who might be able to discover what has happened to him.  A single missing file holds the key.  That too is gone .  But its contents.  Vine is told, are incendiary.  There were few Wilde can trust. And being one of them appears to have fatal consequences.  But as Vine’s off-the-books investigation begins to reveal the shocking truth, he realises there’s much more at stake than one mans life and the reputation of the Secret Intelligence Service.  My Name is Nobody is by Matthew Richardson.

Let the games begin. A man is found buried in a secluded wood on the outskirts of London. Naked, beaten and bruised; forensics also show that he hasn't eaten in the 24 hours before his murder. To DCI Antonia Hawkins it looks like a vicious, targeted attack. The hunt is on. But as more bodies are unearthed in the same state, Hawkins struggles to find a pattern in the seemingly random killings as the body count continues to climb. But who is the hunter? unique kind of serial killer. One that is playing a twisted game. And so far the killer is one winning ...  The Keeper is by Alistair Gunn.

May 2017

Three little girls set off to school one sunny May morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead.  Fifteen years later, Alison and Kitty are living separate lives. Kitty lives in a care home. She can't speak, and she has no memory of the accident that put her here, or her life before it.  Art teacher Alison looks fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up she decides to take it - this is her chance to finally make things right.  But someone is watching Kitty and Alison.  Someone who wants revenge for what happened that day.  And only another life will do...  Blood Sisters is by Jane Corry.

June 2017

An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder.  Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech.  He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out.  Sometimes the truth can be too difficult to explain, or believe.  But he thinks that if he’s going to go down telling the truth.  There are eight pieces of evidence against him.  As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in out hands.  We the reader – member of the jury -  must keep an open mind till we hear the end of the story.  His defence raises many questions…. But at the end of the speeches, only one matters; Did he do it?  You Don’t Know Me is by Imran Mahmood.

Little Susan Verity went missing during the heatwave of 1976.  An unprecedented amount of police resource went into finding  her, but to no avail. Until now.  Serial killer Adrian Wicklow was always the prime suspect. He's  lied to the police about Susan's whereabouts repeatedly but this time, he says, he'll tell the truth. Because Wicklow is dying.  As the case re-opens DS Ian Bradshaw works with investigative journalists Tom Carney and Helen Norton to find Susan. But this is Wicklow's life's work. Would a killer on death's door give up his last secret so easily...?  To Die For is Howard Linskey.

'The emperor's mistress had been murdered, and the world had been taken hold of and turned upon its head' Prague, 1599. Christian Stern, a young doctor, has just arrived in the city. On his first evening, he finds a young woman's body half-buried in the snow.  The dead woman is none other than the emperor's mistress, and there's no shortage of suspects. Stern is employed by the emperor himself to investigate the murder. In the search to find the culprit, Stern finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of the emperor's court - unspoken affairs, letters written in code, and bitter rivalries. But there's no turning back now.  Prague Nights is by Benjamin Black.

July 2017

A photograph found in the effects of a recently deceased polar explorer reveal evidence of something that should not be there. When his death on Deception Island is revealed to have been more suspicious than the heart attack recorded on his death certificate, London's hand is forced. But then the disappearance of the MI6 officer sent south to investigate raises the stakes . . . A four-man military team from a top-secret unit is dispatched. But the South Atlantic in winter is about the most hostile environment on earth. And before you can fight, first you have to survive . . . Deception Island is by Chris Larsson.